


Fade Away

by RantCasey



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 10:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5331236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RantCasey/pseuds/RantCasey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some years after the events of Resident Evil 4, two paths cross under martial law.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seize

Rain seeped down the window.  
  
Leon sat up in bed. In a city like this, the room never got fully dark. It turned a kind of brown color, the streetlights just enough to keep everything dim, but not dark. The light wasn't why he couldn't sleep. Not by a long shot. He rubbed his eyes. Most mornings he woke up, they were bloodshot. Most nights before bed, same thing. All the time, these days, he was just so fucking tired. Tired like he had just gotten back from a mission, but all the time. The kind of tired he couldn't cure with sleep because now, sleep was hard.  
  
There was no ambient city noise to lull him. The rain didn't do much either. He stared at the television in the corner. When was the last time he'd watched some TV? Done some good old channel surfing?  
  
Tch.  
  
Leon yawned. He got up and went to a travel bag with clothes spilling out of it, and dug around for a pill bottle. Xanax. He shook out four of the 1 milligram bars, then paused and put one back.  
  
Most days when he tired to sleep now, his heart would hammer. Sweat would form on his brow. He'd be ready for something to burst in the door or drop from the ceiling, ready to move on to some next leg of a mission that just wasn't there. His heart would hammer and he'd be taking the short breaths of fear, or maybe just adrenaline. And he'd lay there awake. Sometimes until dawn crept into the sky. Sometimes longer.  
  
The Xanax didn't fail, most times. His script was for sixty a month. There were months when that script was wearing thin before the end, and when that happened, he bought his government approved liquor and slept that way. Either way, he got to sleep. Either way, no dreams. Not even good ones.  
  
_It's not every night yet._  
  
But one day it would be. One day it would be every night with the Xanax, and maybe then, he'd start mixing liquor too. Then he'd start with the Xanax during the day. Maybe wash it down with something from a flask, or maybe just a nip. And then his cushy government job would give him the boot and he'd be shit out of luck.  
  
Not that he wasn't already.  
  
He laid back down and rolled onto his side.  
  
Leon jolted awake sometime four hours later. He showered. He shoved his clothes into his travel bag. He swiped the stupid hotel card key, and he checked out. They asked if he enjoyed his stay and maybe some other things, but the morning fog, it didn't allow for that kind of casual brisk conversation. Not at seven in the morning. Not ever, really.  
  
The military police had lined sandbags against fences and made two more checkpoints. Civilians passed through, the occasional one pulled aside. Flashlights shone inside eyes. Identification was produced. Leon breathed the air and no part of it was refreshing. He showed his military ID and walked around the checkpoint.  
  
He felt the stares of people in line on his back. Or maybe he just thought he did.  
  
"Here's your ID, Mr. Kennedy."  
  
"Thanks." Leon slid the ID into his wallet blindly.  
  
The crowd clogged up the other end of the checkpoint, everyone ready to begin their day, to disperse and do whatever it was they did with their lives. Leon looked over his shoulder as he walked through the gate.  
  
Eyes locked before he realized who he was looking at. Then he took in the features of the guy's face. It didn't take the scars for him to know who it was. And by then, he was already slipping into the crowd, being carried off by the swarm of commuters.

  
  
Maxwell Brant, Max, for short, woke up slumped against a table. Drool on his sleeve. A bartender shaking his shoulder.  
  
"Hey, man, curfews done, you gotta get the fuck out of here."  
  
"Mmmm." He squinted up at the bartender.  
  
Something that felt an awful lot like puke made the trip halfway up, but decided last minute to turn around.  
  
"I'm serious, you gotta fucking go."  
  
He somehow sat up, bracing on arm against the table. And then, despite the odds, he stood. Took a step, and then more confidently, another, and soon he was striding out of the bar.  
  
"Fucking alkie," the bartender muttered.  
  
The name was fucking dumb. Max. Like he was some kind of dog. Like whoever had picked it had some fucked up sense of humor. Like maybe Wesker picked it. Except he was supposed to be dead. Umbrella, fucked. All these other companies doing what they did so much better that Al might be jealous if he was still around.  
  
Still, giving him a dog name, it was kind of a Wesker joke.  
  
Krauser blinked in the hazy daylight. The rain, it had let up a little. An ugly sprinkle from a gray sky.  
  
He'd given up trying to piece together how he'd gotten here, who the money in his account every month was from, where his name came from, all that shit. The last thing he'd seen was Ada Wong's bitchy little smirk, and then he'd woken up with time lost.  
  
The worst part was the arm.  
  
He drifted into the checkpoint line.  
  
At first, he waited. He waited for Wesker to come in those stupid sunglasses and then for an Umbrella agent, and then just for signs, and mostly, he didn't get any of those. He waited for almost a year and a half before the cold steely truth came sinking down: no one was coming for him. No one was gonna come and fix his arm and inject some crazy virus shit and get him back in action.  
  
But no one arrested him either.  
  
Mechanically, he pulled out his civilian ID, and showed it while the checkpoint guy raked a flashlight across his eyes. He blinked away the black dots in his vision.  
  
Wait, no.  
  
Not after all this time, this wasn't happening.  
  
Leon?  
  
Krauser watched him slip into the crowd and followed in hot pursuit.  
  
"Move, fuck, I said move," he said through gritted teeth. Crowd was too packed to move fast in.  
  
"You move, ugly!" A voice from the back.  
  
"Fuck you!" Krauser pushed forward, but extended his middle finger toward the rear.  
  
"Shut the fuck up!" This from a third party.  
  
He gave up on the conflict and pushed forward, and then finally, out of the pack of people. No sign of Leon.  
  
_If he was real._ He shook the thought away.  
  
  
  
Jack Krauser was supposed to be dead. Leon slipped into an alley and pressed himself against the wall. What was he doing here? Running some T-Virus racket? Playing armed guard to some new guy promising power? Maybe even planning some large scale attack. Who knew what he'd been up to since he'd fallen off the map?  
  
How many people could successfully fake their death twice?  
  
The gun was pressing against the small of his back. He gripped it.  
  
And then, there was Krauser. He looked rushed. He turned his head to the side, and the to the side again.  
  
_Looking for me._  
  
Leon let him pass, and then counted to eight. He took his hand off his gun, and slid out of the alley. Picking Krauser out of the foot traffic wasn't hard. Guy stood out like a sore thumb.  
  
Why was he bothering with this? Jack Krauser fell into the list of things that were strictly not Leon's problem anymore.  
  
He picked up the pace to close the gap, and then let off.  
  
Krauser looked shabby. His clothes wrinkled, like he'd either slept in them or yanked them out of the dirty laundry.  
  
He moved slower than Leon remembered, too.  
  
That only meant he was easy to tail.  
  
Krauser's pursuit of no one went on for another forty minutes before Leon followed him down a side street and to a dingy apartment building. The rain had picked up again. Krauser ducked into the building and then Leon was alone.  
  
Maybe he should walk away. Just fade back into his own life, forget that he'd seen this particularly raw part of his past. Krauser didn't seem particularly villainous or up to no good.  
  
Leon dropped his travel bag on the sidewalk and pressed his palm to his temple. So many fucked up memories. His face grew hot.  
  
If he waited too long, he wouldn't be able to tail Krauser.  
  
He picked up his travel bag and caught the door to the complex as someone was leaving, just in time to see Krauser disappear into a stairwell. Stairs? Hmm. Maybe Krauser needed his exercise. Leon waited four seconds and opened the door to the stairwell and the footsteps coming from a flight below stopped.  
  
"Hello?" The voice was unmistakably Krauser's.  
  
He thought of descending before he could reply, but then thought better of it. Getting shot in the face in a stairwell wasn't his idea of fun.  
  
"I saw you at the checkpoint." If Leon could recognize Krauser's voice, surely Krauser could recognize his.  
  
Silence from below. The air grew thick with something almost like awkwardness.  
  
"Again, the hunter becomes the hunted."  
  
It was the same brand of tough guy cliche that Krauser had always subscribed to.  
  
"Can I come down without you shooting me?" Leon was tightening his grip on his  pistol.  
  
"Civilians can't own guns," said Krauser.  
  
Another beat of silence.  
  
Leon took a step and then another and before he knew it he was in the red light of an EXIT sign, in front of the door to what was clearly some shitty basement apartment. In front of Krauser.

  
  
Krauser let his face twist into a sardonic smile, like this was all just ducky, some kind of irony that they could look back on and laugh about later. Somewhere beneath that, though, there was panic. He'd stopped waiting and this is what had happened. Someone surfaced and he wasn't ready anymore. Hadn't shaven in a week, hadn't bothered working out in twice as long. And now here was little Leon S. Kennedy. The Boy-scout.  
  
Except not so little anymore. Worn out, more like.  
  
He watched Leon flick his eyes around the arm and take the rest of him in and he did the same.  
  
"You here to arrest me, boyo?"  
  
Leon opened his mouth, then closed it again.  
  
"I'm here to make sure you're not up to anything."  
  
So Kennedy didn't know anything either. Figures. Here he was expecting some revelation, something, some sign that he'd been brought back for a reason.  
  
He put on one of those sardonic type faces again. It was easier the second time. "Making sure I'm not up to anything, comrade?"  
  
Something flickered in Leon's face. Maybe annoyance. Maybe something else. Krauser jammed his key into his door, turned the lock, and opened it.  
  
"You know what I mean, Krauser."  
  
He hadn't heard his name, even just his last name, in so long.  
  
"Tch. Going by something else these days?" Leon must've seen something in his face.  
  
"Max Brant. This is my house. This," he waved the piece of plastic in Leon's face, "is my ID. Now get the fuck out."  
  
Krauser slammed the door. Then watched Leon walk away through the peephole.  
  
_Huh. Gave up without a fight._


	2. Merely Different Sides

Leon turned the knob on the radio, tuning the static out of the frequency.   
  
"Reports say that Albuquerque, New Mexico, is being quarantined in the wake of a new outbreak..."   
  
The radio droned on. Something about listening to it made Leon feel more aware, like he was doing something, even if now, there was no way for him to help. Only underground radio played anything worth listening to. The news, the news on television, it was all a bunch of garbage, never anything about outbreaks or quarantines or budding Raccoon City situations.   
  
The radio stations though... they'd give real news. Say things that mattered.   
  
Rain pattered against the window, and already, the sky had grown dark. Leon pulled a pair of socks out of his bag and yanked them on his feet.   
  
There was the issue of Jack Krauser, living less than a half hour's walk away.   
  
_Not an issue if you don't make it one._  
  
But how could he not? He'd checked and double-checked all the listings in the databases he was still legally allowed to access. All of them listed Krauser as DOA. Leon could turn him in. Maybe get something out of it, maybe get to be on the front lines, sitting in a tent, at least getting to watch the action if not being directly involved, he could bark orders through earpieces for a change... all because he turned in Krauser. Except, maybe not. Maybe he'd just get a pat on the back even, maybe people would remember him and continue to think highly of him and they'd say, yep, that Leon Kennedy, he sure turned out good, put his whole life to the cause, and is still going for it. What a wonderkid.   
  
Just thinking it made him feel selfish. Krauser was a free man now. Was it Leon's job to change that?   
  
He appeared to just be rotting away in that apartment. Appeared being the key word.   
  
Or maybe that's all he was doing. Living out his post-combat life in the only way he knew how.   
  
Leon mentally recoiled away from that line of thought.   
  
Here he was working some cushy government gig, listening to the virus take control of the world piece by piece, with Chris Redfield dead, the BSAA discredited, dozens of corrupt Big Pharma companies cropping up... and here he was thinking that Jack Krauser could be the solution to his problems.   
  
Tch.   
  
He broke the seal on a bottle of vodka.   
  
The scar on his face, the one from the knife fight, it still showed.   
  
_"You may be able to prolong your life, but it's not like you can escape your inevitable death, is it?"_ Krauser's voice echoed in his head.   
  


  
  
Krauser sank into a tattered armchair. He'd just gotten up to pee. Television was playing some home shopping thing. He just left it on for the noise. The relative silence in the basement, sometimes, he'd start hearing shit. Sometimes breathing. Sometimes louder stuff. It was always enough to give him that second of unbridled fear before he realized that no, he was alone.   
  
He dozed. The absolute necessities were delivered to his door, the cash just taken out of his account. The rent, taken out of the account. Booze money? Account. Mostly, he didn't have to leave. Not if he didn't want to.   
  
He'd thought long and hard about who the account was from, where the funds were from, why the hell someone had deemed him worthy to piss away a small but livable wage on. And then, all at once, he just stopped thinking about it.   
  
The apartment was littered with knives, weights, empty bottles, dirty clothes, and other unspeakable horrors that arise from a man living on his own. He hadn't ever really cleaned. He put trash out in front of his door once a week. Next morning, it was always gone, and he'd never figured out what he was actually supposed to do with it.   
  
Krauser opened his eyes and the lady on the television was selling some kind of gas mask. They slid closed again.   
  
_"Javier knows something, he's been able to prevent Manuela from transforming. I have to take her with me and find out how."_  
  
 _The steamy jungle, bugs flying everywhere, snakes out the fuckin ass. Leon doing his whole white knight thing. The moment before he whipped out that PDA and it all came crashing down. The moment before Jack figured out he wasn't the leader, he wasn't really anything but_ _an escort._  
  
 _"Antivirus protocal number 7600. You're on a special assignment from the president."_  
  
 _Dull surprise had crept into his voice but inside something plumed. Anger, jealousy, insignificance, all rolled into one big emotion that he had to stuff deep down._  
  
 _"My mission is to eradicate this virus once and for all, and with your help, I intend to do just that."_  
  
 _This little skinny fuck talking like he's delivering the Gettysburg Address, on top of it._  
  
 _"Well... I am a soldier and if your orders are from the president, then I'm on your side."_   
  
A knock at the door. Krauser practically lept to his feet.   
  
_Real? Or not real?_   
  
He picked up a blade and walked to the door, screwing one eye shut, and looked through the peephole.   
  
Leon?   
  
Krauser put down the knife to open the door.   
  
"What are you doing here? I thought I told you to-" He stopped. Leon had taken a seat on the stairs and was slumped against the railing. Unshaven. Smelling like liquor. Probably in danger of throwing up all over himself.   
  
He couldn't leave him in the hallway. A federal agent or whatever Leon was these days could not be found right in front of his door. No way.   
  
"Leon." Krauser shook the man's shoulder. "Leon!"   
  
"I came to ask you some questions."   
  
Krauser nodded, "Come interrogate me."   
  
"I'm gonna interrogate you, find out what you're up to..." Krauser lifted Leon with his good arm and steadied him.   
  
"Stand Leon. Hear me? Stand."   
  
Leon swayed in place, nodding.   
  
"Gonna figure out what's it your doing and I'm gonna turn your ass in and they're gonna let me fight."   
  
So that's what this was about. Leon thought he could... get something out of this? That didn't seem like the boy-scout he'd tromped through the jungle with. Neither did getting piss drunk.   
  
"How the mighty have fallen," Krauser muttered, pulling Leon into the apartment and shutting the door. "Sit." He said, once Leon was near the couch. "How much have you had to drink?" Too much, by the looks of it. But what he wanted to know was whether Leon would lie or not.   
  
"I'll be asking the questions, Krauser, or should I say, whatever your fake name is."   
  
Krauser rolled his eyes and sat down.   
  
"Ask then. Go ahead."   
  
Leon was leaning back now, his eyes shut, his chin resting against his collarbone.   
  
"Why are you alive?"   
  
"I don't know."   
  
Leon obviously didn't know what to do with that, and paused for a long time.   
  
"How come you didn't tell me when you faked your death?"   
  
Now Krauser paused. Leon's eyes were open again but they slipped back closed. Chances are, he wouldn't remember any of this. That question though, there was nothing drunk about it, Krauser decided. It was valid. Maybe something that had been on Leon's mind awhile.   
  
He'd dignify it with an answer.   
  
"I knew I was out of commission, I had to go get my arm fixed, and I wasn't gonna tell you no matter how buddy buddy we got in that jungle."   
  
"Kay buddy."   
  
Leon had caught none of it.   
  
Krauser watched Leon sleep for a while, then found a knife, and leveled it on his lap, and went to sleep himself. The lady on the shopping channel, now, she was selling toaster ovens.   
  


  
  
The first time he opened his eyes, he didn't know where he was. Some dingy apartment that smelled unwashed. Smelled like no windows and not enough air. His head pounded. There was the feel in his mouth of too much saliva. He'd throw up. Maybe it'd be in five minutes or maybe it'd be in an hour but he'd blow chunks. Leon got to his feet. He needed to find a bathroom.   
  
It wasn't the first time he'd woken up in some strange apartment while on the road. Maybe the first time he'd woken up in one this badly furnished and dirty, though. He walked past a table loaded with stuff and-   
  
Krauser. Asleep in a chair. A knife clutched in his hand.   
  
Asleep like that, it was easier to study his face. Without his predatory, stony eyes staring back. The first time Leon had seen the scar, right before the knife fight, he hadn't known what to think. Now, surrounded by the shitty apartment and the television playing early morning static, it was sad.   
  
And for all that, faking his death, messing up his face... his arm was in worse shape than it was after Operation Javier. Clearly.   
  
Something churned in his stomach and Leon threw open the door to a closet, and then a bathroom, and threw up into the yellowing toilet bowl. And kept throwing up.   
  
He had pressed his forehead against his arm to breathe, relax, before he washed out his mouth and got the hell out of dodge.   
  
"Doing okay, Comrade?"   
  
Shouted from the other room. Fuck. Krauser was up.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
All the layers of awkwardness began to pile up. Leon had wandered here and said god knows what to that man out there. He got up and flushed the toilet and turned on the tap and went his face and looked in the mirror. It was another five minutes before he left the bathroom.   
  
"Sorry about that," Leon said, peering around the apartment.   
  
"Heh." The noise Krauser made, it was almost a chuckle. "You came to interrogate me last night."   
  
Leon felt his face growing hot.   
  
"Yeah? How'd I do?"   
  
"You fell asleep."   
  
Leon turned, and left.   
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Call to Action

The incessant rain turned into incessant freezing rain. Ice grew over everything.   
  
Leon miscalculated the depth of a puddle and walked through it. Water seeped past the sole of his shoe and into his sock.   
  
"Shit."   
  
He jammed his hands in his pockets and kept walking. The worst part of all this, well, maybe not the worst part but definitely the most inconvenient, was the law about no motor vehicles within city limits. The streets were just large sidewalks. Parking lots went unused.   
  
Leon scowled and rounded a corner and avoided a stretch of black ice.   
  
Night had fallen two hours ago. The streets were empty. Curfew.   
  
Again he stood at the foot of the dingy apartment building. Krauser didn't seem the type to stay in one spot long, yet Leon had a hunch he'd be there. Doing whatever he did these days, which didn't appear to be very much. He blew breath into his hands and waited for someone to exit.   
  
It took him about thirty seconds to realize that no one would be leaving. Not after nightfall.   
  
He looked through the dirty glass and saw a rent-a-cop watching Wheel of Fortune. That show was still on? Leon rapped on the glass and watched the security guard stir, take a sip of coffee, and stand up. It was almost another minute before he got around to walking the eight feet and opening the door.   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
"Leon S. Kennedy, special operative. I've been sent on a classified mission, I'll need to look at the foundation of your building."   
  
The rent-a-cop balked and then squinted at Leon's badge.   
  
"Yeah, yeah come in. Stairs are over there, don't trust the elevators. Some guy lives down there, rest of it's a laundry room and heating shit. Go right ahead." He sat back down on his office chair and returned to his game show and coffee.

_That was way too easy._  
  
"Thanks," Leon yanked open the heavy door to the stairwell and descended. He hadn't recovered much memory from the last time he'd been down here, a few months ago, drunk out of his gord. Just flashes: deciding to sit down on the steps, Krauser telling him to stand, the absurd amount of knives that littered the apartment.   
  
He stood in front of the door and knocked three times.   
  


  
  
  
He'd expected Leon to come back sooner. Maybe a week after he showed up drunk, maybe a month. When a month slid by, then two, he figured Leon wouldn't be back. Maybe all that brought him over was plain curiosity. None of that overwhelming sense of duty shit. Either way, Krauser had started working out again. Curls. Presses. Anything he could do single-handed, for the most part. It'd become ingrained back in his routine, enough that he didn't remember what drove him to stop in the first place.   
  
He was laying on his couch, listening to the sounds of the radiator go, when Leon knocked.   
  
Krauser knew damn well who it was before he opened the door. No one else knocked. He counted to ten and got up and checked the peephole and undid the locks and opened the door.   
  
"Leon." He said the name like it was a greeting.   
  
The former boy-scout just stood there, unsure what to say to gain entry, obviously having some kind of existential crisis or maybe just a garden variety flashback. Krauser stood aside and motioned for him to come in and closed the door after him.   
  
The silence hung in the air, thick and heavy.   
  
"You're not here to throw up in my bathroom, right comrade?"   
  
Leon made a face. Probably was regretting this. Maybe wanted to leave. Krauser added an extra laugh in the space that followed, to try and show that hey, he wasn't that serious, it was no big deal, take a seat, have a beer, but instead it came out sounding fake. Canned. Not dissimilar to Saddler's laughs.   
  
There was a note of desperation there too. Krauser swallowed.  
  
"I have some questions to ask."   
  
Now it was Krauser's turn to make a face. The corners of his mouth turned downward. He and Leon had never spent much time together outside of a purely professional capacity, and now, when faced with having to make conversation, Jack sure as hell didn't know how to start.   
  
"Have a beer," Krauser said, pointing to the fridge. "Then ask your questions."   
  
That could work. If he knew one thing about what kind of person Leon was now, he knew that the guy liked to drink.   
  
Leon opened the refrigerator as if he expected it to explode. When it didn't, he yanked the Sam Adams out of the six pack.   
  
"Got anything to open this with?"   
  
"Yeah." He tossed Leon his key ring. All that was on it was the single apartment key and the bottle opener. All he needed, these days.   
  
Krauser got his own beer, put it on the counter top, and opened it when Leon tossed the key ring back. They both took their first sip and silence filled the room again.   
  
"What do you want to know?"   
  
"I wanna know how you're still among the living, Krauser."   
  
"I'd tell you if I knew. Woke up in a hospital five years ago with everyone calling me this fake name, got a key and an address sent to my hospital room, got discharged, came here. Don't really know."   
  
Leon narrowed his eyes like he was considering calling bullshit.   
  
When he'd woken up in that hospital, his arm FUBAR, weak, confused, he'd figured that Wesker would be around. To fill him in. Or maybe even that bitch Ada Wong, to finish off what she'd started. At least someone to tell him why the fuck he was alive when he clearly remembered dying face down his own blood.   
  
Dying. He'd been dead for a time, and not just three minutes. Probably.   
  
He was staring at the rusty radiator again, listening to the hissing and clicking noises it always made.   
  
"If you're here to assess whether I'm a threat or not, you're wasting your time," he said at last.  
  
No matter why Leon was here, he was wasting his time. There had been a period in his life when Jack Krauser was a useful person, but that had passed. Now he just took up space, even if it was just a shitty basement apartment.   
  
Leon evidently didn't know how to take that either. His brow had furrowed, and he seemed to be reading the Surgeon General's Warning on the beer.   
  
"Do you work? How do you afford all this?"   
  
"Money gets thrown in my bank account every month. 'Nough to live on."  
  
"From who?"   
  
Krauser put down his beer and left the room.   
  


  
  
There was something fishy about seeing Krauser this docile. At least he looked better than he did when Leon had seen him last.   
  
He curled his foot inside the wet sock and took another sip of beer. Krauser returned, a slip of paper in his hand.   
  
"What's this?"   
  
"Bank statement."   
  
In short, Max Brant had gotten two thousand US dollars on the first of the month, from something called Aphelion Labs.   
  
"Aphelion Labs? And that doesn't seem the least bit fishy do you?"   
  
Krauser shrugged.   
  
"Figured it was something to do with Umbrella."   
  
Leon exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. Figured it was something to do with Umbrella? What kind of answer was that? What kind of answer was that to give to someone who'd spent his best years trying to topple the corporation?  
  
Wait, no, Krauser hadn't been around to see the fall of Umbrella and the end of Wesker. But how could he just not _know_?   
  
Leon folded the bank statement and put it in his pocket. Evidence. Maybe.   
  
New line of conversation. Leon took another sip of beer.   
  
"Ever feel like you're being watched, Krauser?"   
  
That seemed to take him off guard.   
  
"Yeah. Not a fucking day goes by where I don't feel like I'm being watched. Doesn't exactly mean anything, comrade."   
  
The unspoken part of that sentence hung between them. Paranoid delusions weren't unheard of among those who'd spent so long fighting corporate evil.   
  
"What if I said I felt like that too?"  
  
"I bet you see ghosts too, Leon. Doesn't mean they're real."   
  
Krauser sipped his beer. Leon finished his.  
  
Ghosts. Krauser didn't have to explain for Leon to understand. He set his empty beer down on the table across from the counter top, on top of a bunch of junk mail. The ring from the condensation seeped into the paper. Suddenly, he felt naked and exposed without the beer in hand.   
  
"So, what, you think you were cloned? Injected with some virus? Any ideas?"   
  
"Being cloned doesn't explain the arm."   
  
Another heavy silence. Nothing about pushing Krauser like this made Leon feel good. If the tables had been turned, if Krauser was busting into Leon's house and interrogating him, he'd have bullet in him. No questions asked. Then again, Krauser was the bad guy.   
  
Once upon a time, Krauser had seemed so capable. Like he could go into any situation and come out on top. Like he knew what the fuck he was doing and how to do it. The stoicism, the record, the talent... all of it converged to make this man that seemed more like a supersoldier than anything. Like he was mass produced somewhere, part of a brand where all the kinks had been worked out.   
  
Now, the only word Leon could put to him was pathetic. Krauser had spent so long globetrotting that now, post-death, he couldn't even be bothered to run away from his demons.   
  
Leon stared at the old carpet covering the floor between them.   
  
"You good to fight?"   
  
They both already knew the answer to that. Hell, Leon wasn't even good to fight.   
  
"Fight what?"   
  
He looked up to meet Krauser's eyes.   
  
"Aphelion."   
  
"Hah. Listen, boy-scout, we don't even know who these people are. How do we know they need to be fought?"   
  
"They're signing checks for you."   
  
That one seemed to sting. Krauser put another beer on the counter and cracked it.   
  
"Don't you want a chance to redeem yourself, Krauser?"   
  
Krauser was looking at the television, but it was off.   
  
"Are you helping me redeem myself, or are you playing out some Rambo fantasy because the government put you out of commission?"   
  
Now it was Leon's time to feel stung. He could leave. He could turn around and pretend like none of this ever happened, pretend like he hadn't picked Krauser out of a crowd and then pursued him. He could take the bank statement and push it through the grating over a sewer hole.   
  
Except for some reason, he'd never been able to do any of that. Not really.   
  
"A little of both."   
  
Krauser nodded.   
  
"Here's the deal, comrade. We go, we check it out. Anything doesn't seem right, we make a plan. I'm not getting thrown in prison over some bullshit you cooked up to feel relevant again. The address is on the statement you just pocketed. Now, how're you gonna smuggle me outta here?"   
  
  
  



	4. Skedaddle

The orange pill bottle came out, and immediately, Jack's interest piqued.   
  
"What's that?"   
  
Leon shot him a glare that could peel the paint off a wall.   
  
"Listen Krauser-" It was the beginning of some kind of defensive rant, that much was obvious.   
  
"I'm not trying to bust your balls, comrade." He looked down at the passing sidewalk. The rain had given way to a light sprinkle, coupled with fog.   
  
Leon appeared to consider this, and the prescription bottle came back out of his pocket.   
  
"It's Xanax."   
  
Jack nodded.   
  
The question he wanted to ask, it was on the tip of his tongue. There was no way to put it out there that wasn't awkward, at least for the first time. He watched the sidewalk pass underfoot.   
  
Leon coughed.   
  
"Listen, do you wanna split one or something?"   
  
Krauser looked up and met Leon's eyes. There was no laughter behind him, no just kidding waiting to slip out.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"I'd offer you a whole bar but-" Leon caught himself and lowered his voice. "But we don't wanna be too barred out for the checkpoint."   
  
Something about Leon using drug slang rubbed Jack the wrong way. Then again, seeing Leon shitfaced had also rubbed him the wrong way.   
  
"You have a car outside the city limits, right?" The Xanax had left a chalky, bitter taste in his mouth. Leon was unscrewing the cap of a nip.   
  
"Yeah. Nice little Volkswagen Passat. V8 engine."   
  
None of that meant much to Jack.   
  
The plan was sketchy as best. Leave the city, find Aphelion, let Leon do his thing, maybe get some kind of glory? Redemption? Leon had stayed long into the night, the last time, and talked about how they could fix Jack's arm, and then after a few more drinks, how they'd be on the cover of Time Magazine. Co-men of the year.   
  
Krauser almost smiled at the memory.   
  
There was no way it could work, a plan that poorly put together. It wasn't even a plan, not really. Dream was a closer word.   
  
The checkpoint to get out of the city was damn near swarmed with commuters. Leon weaved in between the people, taking the lead. Jack followed.   
  
"Identification?"   
  
Jack watched as a smile touched Leon's lips. Did the checkpoint guy not notice his glossy eyes? The redness that was creeping across his face? Or maybe, checkpoint guy just didn't care. Maybe checkpoint guy saw too many drunk people nowadays, and he didn't give much of a shit anymore.   
  
"You're clear to go. Gonna need to see your friend's ID too, pal."   
  
Leon blinked.   
  
"He's my partner, he doesn't have clearance for a cross-city visa yet."   
  
Checkpoint Guy looked like he was about to accept it, then he locked eyes with Krauser. There was the familiar feeling of being looked up and down. First, Checkpoint Guy's eyes wandered around Jack's face, and then narrowed. Then, he looked back at Leon.   
  
"This guy's your partner?" Suspicion clouded his voice.   
  
"Yeah. Name's Max Brant."   
  
Checkpoint Guy hesitated.   
  
"I'm gonna have to go get my supervisor."   
  
"Go ahead," said Leon, in his happy, buzzed voice.   
  
The Xanax was starting to kick in. Jack's eyes felt heavy. His breathing slowed. How did Leon drink on this stuff? Hell, how did he even function on it?   
  
Checkpoint Guy returned with his supervisor. The supervisor, he was a little pencil pusher with mean eyes. Krauser swallowed. He knew the type. Probably obsessed with his own power, a true hardass. Had to compensate somehow. Inside his jacket pocket, he balled his good hand into a fist. Only to release the tension, to focus on something else besides the approaching clipboard.   
  
"Mister-" the supervisor checked his clipboard, "Kennedy. You check out. You say yourself and your?"   
  
"Partner." Leon confirmed.   
  
"Your partner, need to exit the city, but he happens to be without his military visa." The supervisor had started eyeing Jack, who kept his gaze flat and level. "Tell me then, what exactly is it you two plan to do once you're out of the city?"   
  
"It's classified."   
  
Leon had responded a little too quickly. The supervisor's face turned a darker shade of red.   
  
"Is that... alcohol I smell?" He shot a look at Jack.   
  
An unsteady silence followed. Checkpoint Guy had drifted off to return to his station, leaving them alone with the hardass. Figures.   
  
In the station, a phone rang, and was picked up. Seconds later, another uniformed checkpoint official came out. "Phone's for you, Lieutenant."   
  
The hardass disappeared.   
  
"We're fucked," Jack said. His travel-bag was filled with knives and two illegal guns. Plus a half case of beer. This was stupid. Stupid, and something that he never should've considered. He wasn't twenty-five anymore. Hell, he wasn't even thirty. This type of bullshit, of course it wouldn't fly especially-   
  
The supervisor reappeared.   
  
"Mister Kennedy," he paused, and looked at Jack, "and company, you're free to go. All the best with your work."   
  
Leon blinked, then broke into an easy smile.   
  
"Thanks. Cya."   
  
Krauser followed him in silence. The Xanax was dampening his feelings, blocking off his thoughts, but in the midst of it, somewhere, was relief. Relief and something else. Why the hell had they gotten a pass? What the fuck was that phone-call? Were they being watched?  
  
The air outside the city was different. Less stuffy.   
  
"You good to drive?"   
  
"Not like we got an option." Leon tossed his bag in the back and slammed the door.   
  
"I can drive."   
  
"Like hell you can. Car's a standard, Krauser."   
  
Maybe something on his face had betrayed him, because Leon cracked another nip and said something that sounded like an apology.   
  
Jack got in the passenger's seat and put it way back and put his bag by his feet and pulled out a beer, then cracked it. It'd gotten a little warmer since he'd taken it out of the fridge.   
  
Leon sighed and jammed the key into the ignition and pulled onto the road.   
  
"So... how long's it been since you left the city?"   
  
"Five years."   
  
"Just about everywhere is worse. You lucked out."   
  
Krauser didn't feel very lucky. The Xanax was hitting hard. He rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. Before he fell asleep, he heard the sound of windshield wipers. 


	5. Motel, Hotel, Holiday Inn

Two hours slid by in relative silence. Krauser couldn't do much but keep his eyes glued to the scenery. Leon was right. The city was better.   
  
They pulled into a vacant lot and Leon shut off the engine.   
  
"Gotta take a leak?"   
  
"No."   
  
Leon got out of the car. Jack hesitated before opening the door and following.   
  
Maybe Leon had lured him out of his self-inflicted coma to bring him here, where there were no witnesses. Maybe Leon was gonna put a bullet in the base of his skull, execution style, right there. The air was cold, but there, standing on the gravel of the lot, Jack started to sweat.   
  
It was smart, bringing him here to finish him off. Leon had obviously intended to kill him in his apartment but had thought better of it for one reason or another and now-   
  
"Hey, you coming, or what?"   
  
Jack snapped back to reality.   
  
"Huh?"   
  
Leon was opening a hatch in the ground.   
  
"Just stopped to get some supplies. Load up. C'mere." He disappeared down the hole.   
  
Krauser swallowed and rubbed his eyes. He crossed the parking lot and started easing his way down the hole. Good. At least with a gun, or even a knife, he'd be able to put up a fight if Leon decided that he didn't want him around anymore.   
  
When he got to the bottom of the ladder he found himself in a room that couldn't really be called a bunker. There were two gun racks, and wooden crates of ammo stacked on top of one another. Leon was loading up an AR-15.   
  
"Pick whatever. The guy who all this belonged to is dead." Krauser picked up on a wounded edge to Leon's voice. Guess the Xanax was wearing off for him, too.   
  
"Whose was it?"   
  
"Chris Redfield." Leon broke eye contact. Probably a sign that Jack shouldn't push the issue.   
  
He peered at a row of handguns on the rack. Firing anything that required two hands was plain out of the question. A couple of glocks would work. Ammo for them was easy to come by out in the world, at least it had been. Reloading might be an issue at some point, but the again, he could just take two. Or three.  
  
Krauser turned around to grab some boxes of ammo and found Leon staring at him. Now it was his turn to break eye contact.   
  
"Gonna take a couple of pussy pistols."   
  
"Mmm."   
  
There were a couple of knives down there too. Nothing quite up to Jack's standards, as far as knives went. He left them alone.   
  
"All done here?"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
Leon slung the box of weapons over his shoulder and started climbing the ladder. Jack stuffed his (Chris Redfield's?) guns in the pockets of his jacket and followed. He'd have to make a second trip for the ammo.   
  
When he got back to the car, Leon was drinking a beer.   
  
"Want one?"   
  
"Sure, why not?"   
  
There were so many reasons why not. Jack cracked the beer open and took a deep drink.   
  
Standing in the dark like this, with a man who he had tried to kill not once, but twice in the same day, there was something surreal about it. Uncomfortable. Maybe it was because they had nothing in common, or maybe it was because on another level, a level that most people don't operate on, they did.   
  
By the time he had just a few sips left of his beer, almost ten minutes had passed. Leon was smoking a cigarette.   
  
"Didn't know you smoke."   
  
"There's a lotta things about me you don't know, Krauser."   
  
Jack finished his beer and tossed it into the inky darkness.   
  


  
  
Leon pressed down on the orange bottle and produced a Xanax. They'd be heading to a motel soon. No reason to pussyfoot around and try to find something to watch on TV until he was tired when he could pop a bar now and go to bed right when they pulled in. Krauser was sleeping, leaning against the window with his eyes shut. His breath had fogged up the window around his mouth and nose. In sleep, the pinched and guarded look was gone.   
  
There was something captivating about his face. Leon found himself looking over at every straightaway. It wasn't just the scars. He took a sip of the open beer in the cup holder.   
  
No, he couldn't reach over with his hand and touch Krauser's face. Wasn't happening. He wouldn't let it happen. He rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. The temperature in the car dropped. Krauser stirred.  
  
"We there yet?"   
  
"Just looking for a motel or something."   
  
"Mmm." Krauser rubbed his eyes and took a swig of the beer in the cup holder.   
  
"Get your own. Cooler's in the back."   
  
Krauser fished out a beer and cracked it.   
  
They'd been passing ruined neighborhoods and driving past abandoned businesses all night.   
  
"Sure you're gonna be able to find a hotel?"   
  
"No. Worst case scenario we sleep in the car. Cheaper anyway."   
  
"It's fucking forty degrees out, Leon."   
  
"Drink a few more of those beers and you won't even notice."   
  
He hadn't planned this well. Leon finished off his own beer and turned off the main road. There'd have to be something around here somewhere. Before the satellites fell out of the sky, he would've just pulled out a smartphone and asked it where to stay. Now, all those iphones and samsungs and LGs, they were just fancy coasters.   
  
Another half hour of driving around and finally, Leon pulled into a motel. The sign was off. It looked just as desolate as the rest of the small town had.  
  
"Sure this place is even open?"   
  
"Does it look open to you?" He'd let an edge creep into his voice that he hadn't meant to, and Krauser was silent.   
  
They got out of the car and started walking toward the modest, one story building. It wasn't the kind of motel where the rooms were open air, just rows of doorways set into the side of the building. That wasn't good.   
  
He and Krauser stood in front of the locked door. Someone had bothered to flip the closed sign around before they left.   
  
"Hold my beer." Krauser stepped back and then kicked the glass with the bottom of his foot. It first turned opaque with cracks, and then, it shattered.   
  
"Didn't figure you could get your leg up that high." Leon took a sip of the beer and handed it back.   
  
"Yeah, fuck you too."   
  
Inside, the motel reeked of mold. Leon pulled his glock out of the holster and took out a flashlight. He rested one wrist over the other.   
  
The silence was overbearing. Krauser was following practically half a step behind him. Leon opened his mouth to say hey, we're probably not gonna find anything, I'm just paranoid and you probably are too, pick a room and let's try to get some shut-eye when there was a noise.   
  
Faint, but definitely real. Krauser had froze too.   
  
Leon strained his ears. The noise, it had sounded like someone bumping against a piece of furniture. Like a single soundbyte from some overzealous sex. A headboard on wall type sound.   
  
It was another ten seconds or so before he noticed that he was holding his breath.   
  
"Where do you think that came from?" His voice was a whisper.   
  
"Dunno." Krauser was gripping his gun so hard that his knuckles had turned white.   
  
They stayed like that, frozen in the hallway, until it happened again.   
  
Another isolated thump. This time, closer. Leon's face was growing hot. His heart, it was hammering.   
  
"It's coming from behind us." Krauser's hot breath tickled his ear.   
  
Leon turned. The beam of his flashlight caught something before it disappeared behind the reception desk. How they fuck did they miss it when they came in? Unless...   
  
It moved in and out of the beam again. Too quick to be human.   
  
Krauser, the trigger-happy son of a bitch, he'd taken a knee and was firing into the lobby. One window shattered and then another, pieces of glass littering the floor.   
  
"I think I hit it!" There was an excitement in his voice that Leon hadn't heard since they'd reconciled.   
  
There was liquid that almost looked like blood on the dirty oriental rug. It looked like blood, but it was somehow... off. Too dark. Viscous. Slightly reflective.   
  
"See it?"   
  
"No."   
  
They waited, guns out, for the fast shadow to pass the beam. Five minutes passed.   
  
"Could've just left to go die somewhere." When he was a kid, maybe eight years old, his cat had gotten sick. First it had thrown up everywhere, and then, the last time he saw it alive, it was breathing heavily in this way that was just wrong. Then it left. His Mom didn't find it until a week later when the smell had taken over the entire first floor. The cat, Smokey, had squeezed himself in a vent to die.   
  
"Could've," Krauser agreed.   
  
"Wanna get the fuck out of here and sleep in the car? This is starting to be kind of a hassle."   
  
By the time they drove away from the motel and found somewhere to park, his eyes were starting to slide shut.   
  



	6. Chapter 6

He turns in slow motion and the fog is too thick to shoot through, the laser at the end of his handgun just disappears into the thick curtain and still he can hear their voices, shrieking, just outside of his line of vision and his feet, his fucking feet, they won't move and suddenly his gun is empty and he reaches down for a fresh clip and there's nothing there and-  
  
Leon sat straight up. His sweat made his shirt stick to the leather interior. He wiped his brow. There was a can of beer on the floor by the gas pedal. Another opened and mostly untouched in the cup holder. Right... that's right. His breathing regulated. They'd decided to sleep in the car after that fast dangerous shadow had fucked off to die or maybe regroup and attack them. He looked over at Krauser.   
  
Who was looking back at him.   
  
Leon grew uncomfortable under the stare and broke eye contact.   
  
"Morning."   
  
"How long have you been up?" Instead of sounding colloquial, it sounded like an accusation.   
  
"Twenty minutes." Krauser rubbed his chin. He had stubble. Leon realized he'd never seen the man without a clean shave. The way his scars crisscrossed through the 5 o'clock shadow really was something else. Leon pushed that realization away.   
  
"You were having a nightmare," Krauser added.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
They sat in silence until Krauser got out to take a leak. He didn't walk very far.   
  
Leon rubbed his eyes and then started the car and put on the defroster and cranked the heat. He was never one to piss right when he got up.   
  


  
  
They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of a crinkly old road map.  
  
"So wait, where's Aphelion?" Jack yawned and stretched. They were in the run down diner for food. The road map had been folded neatly on a table, beneath a thick layer of dust.   
  
"The location that's signing your checks is in Topeka."   
  
"Doesn't sound like the kinda place for an evil corporation."   
  
Leon gave Jack a look that could peel the paint off walls. Wind blew through the diner just then, the blown out windows doing nothing to stop the gust. Jack shivered despite himself, he'd left his jacket in the car.   
  
_Stupid._   
  
The silence that followed was heavy in a way that Jack couldn't quite discern. Something in the air had changed.   
  
"Gonna be like a thousand mile drive, huh?"   
  
"Yeah." The dark look was gone from Leon's face. He folded the map and tucked it under his arm. The only usable thing the diner had was a dusty case of water.   
  
They walked back out into the gray, misty day. Leon had left the car running. There was maybe a quarter tank of gas left, tops. Leon made a lot of mistakes like that, these days. Leaving the car running, sometimes leaving the door open, forgetting to take the safety off his gun, real simple shit.   
  
In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, a guy pushed a shopping cart in their direction. Jack stopped to look for him. Leon was finally taking a leak by the dumpster.   
  
As the bum approached, Jack could see the guy was clearly out to lunch. Talking to himself. Gathering pieces of trash.   
  
He looked from the bum to Leon, and then back again. When the bum finally walked by, muttering something about thieves, Jack settled his gaze on the dusty water bottles in the backseat.   
  
Leon approached.   
  
They got into the car.   
  
"One of us should spring for some money. An emergency type fund," Jack offered.   
  
Leon gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and slowly turned in Jack's direction.   
  
"Sounds like a great idea. That way, we can get alert everyone who might be looking to our fucking location, huh?"   
  
Jack blinked. He hadn't realized this was strictly top secret.   
  
Leon was still going.   
  
"Yeah, ya know what? Why don't I just post a bulletin somewhere, or better yet, start broadcasting from a CD radio, would that make you happy, Krauser? Huh? Just go ahead and tell everyone, right?"   
  
Jack stared hard into the dashboard of the car.   
  
"Take a fucking Xanax, Leon."   
  
Leon look like he was really gonna blow up for a second, maybe start smashing his forehead into the steering wheel, but instead he put the car into gear and started driving angry, blowing through the empty streets at seventy miles an hour. Within five minutes, he was wrestling his pill bottle out of the center console. From the passenger seat, Jack heard Leon's teeth grinding.   
  
In twenty minutes, when Leon had another beer and the empty gloss had settled over his eyes, Jack spoke up.   
  
"All I meant was we're running low. Food, water, gas. That shit. I don't even have more clothes." He'd been kicking himself for not packing more. Then again, with the whole checkpoint fiasco, getting more luggage through would've only made the wage slaves more suspicious.   
  
"You don't think I fucking know that?" The edge was back in Leon's voice, but now, it was cloudy. Far away. Like whatever he was angry about had happened once in a dream.   
  
"Got any plans to deal with it, boy scout?" Jack was leaning back against the reclined seat now. Being cooped up in a relatively small four door, it was starting to get to him. Something in his lower back was starting to stir and complain.   
  
Leon didn't say anything for maybe an hour and a half before Jack dozed off. That didn't mean much. Leon was rarely good for conversation after eating even half a Xanax, let alone a whole bar.   
  


* * *

  
  
He slammed the breaks and the tires screamed against the asphalt. Jack stirred awake and braced himself against the car door. In front of them was a truly huge wall.   
  
"Holy shit," Leon said flatly.   
  
Krauser took his hand off the car door.   
  
There were armed guards in fire towers near what seemed to be a huge entrance.   
  
He'd heard about these before. Gated communes. Probably a better deal than what people got in most of the cities. Although, by the looks of it, here the only difference was that it was militia instead of military. Leon rubbed his nose and stopped the car.   
  
"Think they're triggerhappy?" Krauser was stuffing a gun into a holster.   
  
"Wait here." Leon got out of the car and threw a glance back at Krauser, who looked like a puppy that'd just been kicked.   
  
He walked over to the gate, and brandished his military ID.   
  
"Hello, I understand you fellows need some assistance," he shouted upwards. The guards in the fire towers looked at each other. Then, one picked up a megaphone.   
  
"You're here about the uh, warehouse issue? We just sent out the call this morning."   
  
Leon shrugged.   
  
"I work fast. Gonna let me in?"   
  
He shoved his wallet back into his pants. There were some skeptical murmurs from the guards.   
  
"We're uh... gonna have to test you, Sir, and whoever's in the car. Check that your ID scans out. After that, yeah."   
  
Leon exhaled the breath he'd been holding. Whatever the warehouse issue was, he had Krauser would deal with it. And then, they'd take these people for whatever useful things they had behind the huge cement jersey barriers. He motioned for Krauser to get out of the car.   
  
When he didn't emerge right away, rage coiled in his stomach. After all this shit was done, he needed a cold brew.   
  
Krauser finally hauled his ass out of the car, the knuckles on his hand jammed into the small of his back.   
  
"What's up?"   
  
Leon put his hand on Krauser's shoulder and drew him closer.   
  
"We're gonna go, fix this issue they have- something about a warehouse- and then we're gonna stock up on shit and split. Got it?"   
  
He nodded. Leon took his hand off Krauser's shoulder and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. The dude gave off so much heat.   
  
"Alright, we're ready."   
  
The gates opened with a creak.   
  


* * *

  
  
They were shuffled through the regular bureaucracy, and Leon pawned off the lie that Jack's military visa was on the way soon. These guys took it better than the men at the checkpoint did. After that, they were told to wait in a room with two old leather chairs in front of a desk.   
  
A squat, balding man walked in. Jack couldn't help but be reminded of George Costanza.   
  
"Hey, hey." He sounded out of breath.   
  
"Hello, names Leon S. Kennedy, special agent." Leon was doing his best polite impression. He'd produced his military card and Costanza nodded at it, but didn't offer his own name.   
  
Jack scowled and looked hard at Costanza from beneath his brow. His job was to be intimidating. To give Leon a little more clout to talk with.   
  
Talking had never been Jack's thing.   
  
"Have you been briefed?" The man was looking at Leon, primarily, but snuck glances at Jack with his peripherals.   
  
_Like what you see, asshole?_  
  
"Not really. We were just told you had a problem with one of your storage facilities."   
  
The little bald man grunted. Jack tilted his head, and his neck gave a sickening crack. Costanza almost jumped.   
  
"Yeah. Yeah it's a BOW, we're pretty sure. Thing scaled the wall sometime, got past the guards. Killed a few people. Now it's locked in the warehouse, and none of our guys wanna go put it down."   
  
Leon was nodding.   
  
"Shouldn't be hard, right, Krauser?"   
  
Jack gave a grunt that sounded almost like agreement.   
  
"Alright. Here's a map. Go, do your job, get out of here. The people don't like your type. We'll have an escort for you."   
  
"That won't be necessary."   
  
Leon knew as much as he did that one of these guards would just slow them down.   
  
"Maybe not, but he'll be provided anyway," Costanza said stiffly.   
  
This wasn't a manpower type concern. It was a trust thing. Jack hardened his gaze. Costanza was now trying as hard as possible to not even look into Jack's face. Leon was lapping up the attention, he'd grown charming and nonchalant in the presence of the little bald guy.   
  
Leon rose.   
  
"The last thing we have to discuss is payment."   
  
Jack waited twelve seconds and stood.   
  
"Doesn't the military pay you?" Costanza's face was etched with skepticism.   
  
"Yeah, but for small time things like this, we like collecting a little bonus. We're on the road most of the time, and you know how it is out there."   
  
Costanza's eyes narrowed. He flicked his gaze toward Jack for a fraction of a second, and then looked Leon up and down.   
  
"You're both a little... seasoned, huh?"   
  
Leon didn't even look phased.   
  
"Do you want us to go kill that thing, or not? Because I guarantee you, there's better ways we could be spending our time." In other words: don't push it, you little jackass.   
  
"Alright, alright. Barry will be down the stairs waiting at the outpost." Costanza looked at his paper covered desk for a few moments. "Good luck out there."   
  
"We don't need it." Jack said. Leon left. He followed.   
  



	7. Barry

Barry stood at the bottom of the stairwell, gun in hand. Thank god there'd be someone to deal with that thing. It had gotten Carl. Carl... he'd had a kid. Maybe two? Barry couldn't remember, but there was at least one kid in the picture. A damn shame. Carl? He'd been pushing for electricity at the top of the wall, too.  
  
This would all get cleared up nice and easy and he'd have a story to tell one day.  
  
The door to the office upstairs shut. Powell had walkied that he'd briefed the military guys. Thank god they got down there so fast.  
  
Barry's smile died on his face when he saw the two guys. No uniforms or big helpful bob the builder smiles like he'd imagined.  
  
These guys looked like they'd been on the road. And worse, they only looked like they sorta were military. The whole no uniform thing. Barry looked them up and down until the bigger one started staring a goddamn hole in him so he pointed his eyes at the other one's shoes.  
  
"Hey, fellas, uh, name's Barry, I'm gonna be escorting you."  
  
He got a whiff like these guys hadn't showered in at least a couple.  
  
"Lead the way, Barry." This was from the one with kinda longer hair. Not shaved. He was kind of smiling but it didn't reach his eyes, which were bloodshot like he'd been up all night.  
  
Barry swallowed and turned away. The other one, the big one, he didn't even wanna look at that guy. So he didn't.  
  
If he could've gotten on his walkie and said something, he woulda. He woulda said that these guys were bad news and might be lying about being with the military and definitely not the type of people that should be in the compound and what would Carl think? Carl wouldn't have stood for letting these- these jerks in. No way, Jose.  
  
Barry pushed through the door and blinked in the sunlight and turned around. It'd be a short walk to the warehouse. With anyone else, he would've tried to make some smalltalk. Ask some questions. Anything. But in truth there was some little feeling that he shouldn't push these guys. That maybe, if he asked the wrong thing, the big one would kick his teeth in.  
  
He swallowed again. He looked down at his hands, gripping the gun, and saw he was holding on way too goddarn tight.  
  
Then again... maybe it was his duty to make sure these guys were okay. Because Carl had gotten eaten. And if there was no Carl around, then maybe he had to be the new Carl.  
  
Barry cleared his throat.  
  
"Hey guys, what're your names?"  
  
No one said anything for a little bit, there was just walking.  
  
"Leon Kennedy." This was from the one who was walking more in front of him now. The one with shaggy kinda long hair and the leather jacket. If it wasn't for the no shave thing or the red eyes thing or the smell thing he might be some kind of James Bond type. He sure walked like it, hand to god.  
  
The bigger one still didn't say anything to Barry gathered up his courage and turned around and met those mean eyes.  
  
Eyes like he was a pit bull chained in an alley.  
  
"Max Brant," the big one said. With those scars. What made scars like that?  
  
Barry stopped.  
  
"Well alright then Leon and Max, we're gonna have to be able to trust each other doing this. Anything I should know as new assistant head of security?"  
  
The smaller one looked at the big one, and being free from both their stares, Barry took the opportunity to look them up and down again. Definitely living on the road. Not military. Maybe assassins? That scar... that was the type of scar that an assassin might have, right?  
  
And for another thing, how old were these guys? Definitely not active military. And why would any outfit send some semi-retired guys to go deal with a problem this big?  
  
Why hadn't he been told of a reply to the distress signal?  
  
Barry's mouth ran dry.  
  
"Nope, nothing I can think of, Barry. Why don't you let us in?"  
  
The second of no one talking seemed like an hour. Especially now that the big one was staring a hole in him again.  
  
"Wait just a second, partner. We gotta- we gotta get something straight here. Y'all are military?"  
  
"Yes." The big one spoke up this time, and his voice was cold. Cold and mean, like all he wanted to do was take Barry back outside the wall and stomp a mudhole in him.  
  
"Your coworkers already checked us out. Just let us into the warehouse." His voice sounded so reasonable, but those eyes, they said something else. Like maybe the guy was lying right through his teeth, not about getting checked out, but about damn near everything else.  
  
"H-Hold your horses, fellas. I gotta think."  
  
These two unwashed maybe middle aged guys were not sent from the military. Maybe they had IDs, but that didn't mean diddly squat, not in Barry's books. Heck no.  
  
"What's the problem, Barry?" The who said his name was Leon asked. If that was his name. Leon.  
  
"I just... y'all came here looking like this, and I just don't know that the military sent you. Figured you'd have uniforms. And we never did get a reply to our distress call back at the radio. So what I'm wonderin is-"  
  
"There's nothing to wonder," said the big one.  
  
Barry's blood ran cold. These guys weren't military. They weren't anything but two whacked out losers who'd driven by.  
  
"I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to escort you gentlemen to the gate. We'll deal with this little BOW problem on our own."  
  
"Barry, stop." This was from the one called Leon. The reasonable one. Well, reasonable in comparison.  
  
There was no one around. Everyone had given the warehouse a wide bearth. There was usually a guard or two stationed above it, on the wall, but since Carl no one really wanted to post up around there. Space heater or not. There was no one around and by god it was two against one.  
  
"Give- Give me one reason why I shouldn't walkie my boss."  
  
The smaller one bent at the knees to get on Barry's level and all of the sudden his warm (was that beer?) breath was on Barry's face and he said:  
  
"I was at Racoon City, you dipshit."  
  
Barry's mouth opened and closed a few times but no words came out.  
  
"I know you think I'm a liar. I'm not lying about that. We're gonna go kill that thing for you people. We're gonna ask for something in return. That's how it's gonna be, got it?" Leon had lowered his voice, made it calm.  
  
Barry wiped his forehead.  
  
Would Carl let random people in, even if they were gonna kill the thing that killed him?  
  
Then again, maybe what Carl would do was a little less important than what Barry was gonna do, these days.  
  
"I s'pose so," he said at last.  
  
The guy was old enough to have been at Racoon City. Had a government ID. So what he wasn't looking so good these days or had picked some scary looking guy to hang out with? Didn't change the fact that he'd been there. Barry knew how to spot a lie. Hand to god he could always look in someone's eyes and see the lie there. And that guy, Leon, if that wasn't a fake name, he might've had red, glossed over eyes, but there hadn't been any lie knocking 'round there.  
  
"Before I unlock the door, lemme tell y'all what y'all are in for. The thing in there? Moves fast. Like lightning. We don't got a good idea of what it looks like, seems to go dim. Not invisible, but dim, ya know? Between that and how fast it is, we don't know. What we _do_ know is that it can take a chunk the size of a trashcan lid out of a man's torso. And by god, it eats whatever it bites."  
  
Leon was nodding and had taken the assault rifle off his back.  
  
The big one, who Barry now noticed actually was wearing fatigues for pants, was shrugging off his jacket.  
  
And he'd caught Barry looking at his arm. How not all of it was really there.  
  
Barry looked away real fast and took out his keyring.  
  
"I'm locking you in with it. We can't afford another goddamn massacre. Once it's dead, you knock at that door and tell me, I'll letcha out."  
  
Leon didn't even look a little comfortable. In fact, he had leaned over and whispered something in the big one's ear, and he'd just nodded.  
  
Barry swallowed hard and opened the door.  
  
"Good luck in there, fellas. Here's the key to the second door. Once you go through there, you're in there with it."  
  
He tossed Leon the key. And by god, Leon caught that sonofagun. 


	8. Hollowed

Leon stepped into the warehouse.   
  
The inner room, it was dank. Musty. Like the cobwebs that were at the corners had been there for a long time. He put a fresh clip into his glock and looked over at Krauser.   
  
"Let's do it." Hearing Krauser say that, it was like he'd been transported to some fucked up parallel dimension. A fucked up parallel dimension where Krauser was an Assistant Peewee football coach instead of a killing machine.   
  
Leon unlocked the door. Inside, was a vast space surrounded by boxes and tubs. Really, it was true storage. Nothing nefarious or weird. He stepped in. Silence. He took another step and something dark and fast moved along the boxes.   
  
"That was it."   
  
Whatever it was, it moved quick. Not unlike the thing they'd encountered at that shitty motel.   
  
A spark of worry hit Leon's mind. Here was Krauser, who didn't have the benefit of a rifle or any other gun that needed two hands. Krauser, who was sporting a couple pistols and a knife. He swallowed thickly. They were gonna get out of this. The only reason why so many   
  
had died when the thing first came in was because of lack of experience, he was sure.   
  
The thing sped past the a bunch of boxes. So fast that Leon couldn't discern where it ended and began. It could've been the side of an average sedan or larger. Who knew? In the stale air, sweat started to form on his forehead. Krauser's breathing was audible feet away.   
  
"I'm gonna throw my knife at it." His voice didn't sound very confident. Like he wasn't 100% sure that the thing would die from a knife wound. Or that he could even hit it.   
  
Leon gave himself a little slap on the face. Just to return him to reality. He'd had roughly a bar and a half of Xanax plus all the booze that had been in the mix. That dude Barry, he'd put them through the goddamn ringer with all his questions. Almost, he wished he had water to dump on himself. Just to make it okay. Just to make him feel more awake.   
  
The laser pointer of his gun, it rested up against a bunch of brown boxes.   
  
The noise came from above. Wet, ugly breathing. Like whatever was taking the breaths had lungs filled with fluid.   
  
Krauser threw his knife into the air and by some miracle it stabbed the thing somewhere, because it was invisible (dim, Leon amended) it was damn near impossible to see where but when the dark black blood started falling from the ceiling Krauser looked like he was ready to give out some sort of triumphant whoop. Instead, he only checked the clip on his pistol.   
  
They watched the thing slink into the shadows behind a bunch of wooden crates. The blood made it more visible, the dark stains coloring the outline of sinewy arm. It was leaving a trail.   
  
"We need lights."   
  
Krauser circled around behind Leon back toward the door. And then there was the whoosh bang of the thing charging and slapping up against a bunch of crates. Even with the blood, the thing wasn't easy to see.   
  
"Switch isn't by the door."   
  
This was going to hell in a hand basket. They should've gotten a walkie from Barry. At the very least they should've asked him where the goddamn lightswitch was. Leon wiped the droplets of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. The warehouse, it was getting warm.   
  
Leon fired a few shots toward where the thing last was but all he got for his troubles was a few bullet holes in the crates. Fuck.   
  
"Krauser! Lights!"   
  
"I'm looking." There was a crop of blonde hair behind what seemed to be a detached walk-in freezer. Leon looked up above Krauser.   
  
The thing was up there in the rafters making those harsh breathe-snarl noises. It shifted and the arm that was most visible went out of view before Leon could take aim and he damn near fired a clip into the rafters and then his ears were ringing and he was screaming something for Krauser to get out of the way and had rolled to the side himself to change positions and the thing hadn't made any noise like it'd been hit and-   
  
The lights came on. Leon blinked the floaters out of his eyes and scanned the room and the thing wasn't there.   
  
"You good Krauser?"   
  
"A-okay," came the reply but he sounded out of breath.   
  
"See it anywhere?" Leon was pivoting in the center of the clearing, making sure to look up, check the corners and then suddenly a flash of almost gray blackness.   
  
Almost, it was like being in the sewers of Saddler's Castle.   
  
Krauser's knife fell from the ceiling, the blade and most of the hilt covered with the viscous black blood. It clattered on the cement.   
  
Leon took his rifle off of his back and fired at the ceiling. No dice.   
  
Krauser was next to him again. He pulled something off of his belt.   
  
An Incendiary grenade.   
  
"Here's how we're gonna do it, comrade. We're gonna wait here till it gets close enough and I'm gonna throw this fucker right at 'im."   
  
There were so many flaws in that plan that it took everything for Leon not to pinch the bridge of his nose and shake his head.   
  
"We know this thing can't do anything ranged, or else it already woulda. Means we got the advantage of keeping it at arms length to do damage, capise?"   
  
Leon opened his mouth to reply but something shifted behind them. They both whipped around. The breathing grew louder.   
  
The thing definitely had a smell and there was no way to describe it, not really. One time, living in this shitty apartment in Uganda, before the world was fucked, Leon's garbage disposal had broken and the food in there just rotted and rotted and by the time he called a repair man the entire apartment smelled like this ugly death rot scent and that wasn't even half as bad as how this fucking thing smelled.   
  
It must've been within six feet of them.   
  
Leon had drawn his other gun and they were back to back and the thing wasn't in the rafters anymore which meant that it was fucking circling... waiting.   
  
And aside from the wet snarling breaths it took, it hadn't made any noise.   
  
Krauser had produced another knife and if it had been another time or place maybe Leon would've laughed at the sheer absurdity of another twelve inch blade being on his person but instead his eyes were flitting around the warehouse and the light hadn't even helped and-   
  
The thing lunged and Krauser jerked the knife forward and he didn't recoil and he didn't close his eyes and when the blood dripped down the thing's invisible face it painted features. Six eyes on either side of the head, four of them now filling with blood, Krauser's knife going through the bottom of the jaw and going right up toward the back of the head and the black sticky blood was going down Krauser's arm and the thing shuddered, this inhumane too fast shutter and Leon stepped back and Krauser took his knife out of the thing and it dropped to the floor.   
  
Its claws had been so close.   
  
They stood there and watched the thing bleed, its blood making it more and more visible. It looked unfinished. The bootleg copy of a movie still in theaters. Veins drooped out of muscle and pink patches that could almost pass for skin were smattered around the thing's body.   
  
No one said anything for a long time.   
  
One of its eyes slid out of the socket and onto the floor.   
  
Leon turned and headed for the door. His head, it was hammering. So was his heart. He needed a stiff drink and a xan. He heard Krauser following. They'd both ended up caught in the splatter of the thing's blood.   
  
He knocked on the door.   
  
"Barry?" His voice came out less even than he would've liked. He cleared his throat.   
  
"We're done here." 


	9. Hazardous Waste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i dont even know anymore

The Volkswagon skidded to a halt over gravel, spraying it all over the side of the battered gas station.   
  
Jack shouldered the passenger side door open and stomped out and made a beeline for the nearest pump. He gave the thing a kick and whirled around to face Leon.   
  
"You fucked it all up. You fucked this all up and it was fucked up from the start, know that, comrade?" He said it through gritted teeth. Something inside his mouth gave a creak and then a snap and then there was the warm metallic taste of blood in the back of his mouth and that only made it worse- the anger. Like all of the sudden Jack was distanced from the world, the gas station parking lot, everything, except his body was marching forward and he saw himself pick up speed.   
  
"You fucked up Leon," he bellowed with the blood in his mouth climbing the cracks of his teeth and he was reaching across the car, across the windshield and seized Leon's shirt.   
  
Maybe if Leon wasn't so benzo'd out with the Xanax he would've been able to send a kick or resist being moved or maybe even pulled a gun out of some hammerspace but instead his hip dug into the mirror on the driver's side and snapped it off and it clattered to the ground and then Leon was on top of the windshield, his legs kicking around the hood of the car and Jack was still screaming and somewhere buried deep inside his own rage he didn't even know if there were words anymore, because how could there be words? Words for this kind of fuck up.   
  
Leon was saying something but Jack watched the muscles in his arm tense against the fabric of his shirt as he brought Leon closer, now, Leon's face was nose to nose and somewhere along the way Jack had broken out into a sweat that the chilly wind was cooling.   
  
Something about being so close, with the blood in his mouth and the steady ache that was coming from the broken tooth and the smell of cheap whiskey coming from Leon and all of it- the stupid parking lot and the German car and the fucking warehouse, all of it was too much. Jack damn near threw Leon to the ground.   
  
In the distance there was the sound of helicopter blades chopping at the wind.   
  
Leon had drawn a knife and Jack ripped his out of the holster in the harness he was wearing and then they were in Spain again, circling each other in that dark room before the bitch in the red dress showed up. They were in Spain again and things were simpler because they were old friends and new enemies instead of whatever they were now and the feelings could be raw and undiluted by days of sleeping side by side in a car.   
  
"What, too scared to make the first move?" Leon was clutching a knife in one hand and brushing the dust from the parking lot off of his leather jacket with the other. The sound of the heliocopters was drawing closer.   
  
That was all he had? Some shitty one-liner?   
  
Their situation deserved more than that.  
  
  
  
They pulled away from the compound, loot in the back seat, and Leon turned on the radio and took half a Xanax. Just half. So he'd be able to drive. He'd cracked another beer as soon as they'd gotten into the car and then with half a bar it should settle into something respectable, a nice functional fuzz. There were two dead nips in his pocket. Somewhere along the line he'd taken to hiding the liquor from Krauser. Not because the other guy was gonna take it, but just because of the glares Leon got from him.   
  
When he popped the half bar he snuck a look at Krauser's face and saw that the guy was already looking at him, this sidelong glance. Tch.   
  
He flipped the car radio to the station that broadcasted real news. It crackled, and then amongst the static, a voice.   
  
"-Inside the compound, so far more than thirty have been identified as DOA, survivors indicate that a duo masquerading as military personnel arrived hours ago and claimed to have killed-" Leon smashed the off button in and then there was silence. A lump grew in his throat.   
  
"What was that?" Krauser's voice was damn near a whisper.   
  
Leon swallowed but it didn't do anything for the lump.   
  
"You said it was fucking dead, Leon." Krauser's voice had gotten louder and his face was twisting into something mean, something predatory, and Leon started to drive faster, weaving around abandoned cars.   
  
"How the fuck was I supposed to know it wasn't? Huh?" Leon fumbled for the cigarettes in the cup-holder and Krauser grabbed his hand and squeezed, mashing the knuckles together and Leon cried out in pain and almost swerved the car into a Honda Civic.   
  
"Let go of me!" He wrenched his hand away from Krauser and the car was almost going eighty now along the residential section, collapsed suburbia whizzing by.  
  
"I'm practically a fucking war criminal, Leon. You just signed my death certificate." And out of nowhere, Krauser started laughing this laugh that sent chills down Leon's spine and made his forehead break out in sweat and he slowed down the car and skidded to a halt in the gas station parking lot.   
  
  
  
Jack clutched his knife in his hand so hard that his knuckles had turned white and he bared his teeth and could still taste the blood there and the heliocopters were getting closer. Count on Leon to fuck everything up. Grab him out of his life for no reason and bring him across state lines for some mission that hadn't made any fucking sense from the beginning. They were circling each other.   
  
Leon struck out first and he'd aimed for Jack's stomach, looking to gut him maybe, and Jack jumped back just in time to save his entrails but his shirt had been torn open at the middle and he spun his knife on his palm until the business end was pointed down, Psycho style. If they were going for kills, he'd go for kills. The knife came down and he was aiming for the soft spot between the collar bone and the neck, where Leon would bleed out quick and he could escape the helicopters maybe, but probably not.   
  
Leon managed to bend his knees just in time and Jack swallowed more blood and pivoted.   
  
Now the sound of helicopters was loud, an he looked to the sky and there they were, fucking four helicopters in a world where the military couldn't even give every grunt a weapon and-   
  
Leon had taken advantage of the opportunity, and maybe he had been going for the chest but instead all he managed was to slice a healthy gash right under his armpit and there was the warm sticky feeling of his body pumping out blood and then a helicopter had landed and the deafening noise of blades chopping at the air drowned everything out except for a megaphone.   
  
The cheating bastard turned around to look.   
  
"Drop your weapons!" This came from the man with the megaphone who was wearing sunglasses despite the gray ugly sky.   
  
Leon dropped his and so did Jack and he couldn't even put his hand over where he was bleeding because it was on the same side so he squeezed his bicep against the wound and it was pumping pumping pumping out blood and he started to see spots and then he took a step back and forward and saw himself reflected in the knife on the ground and Leon was turning to say something but with the noise of the chopper it was just his lips moving and maybe now Jack was lightheaded and the spots were growing bigger and   
  
  
Krauser took a tumble, his face slapping into the gravel and something in Leon tightened. He bent down to shake Krauser and nothing happened and the dork with the megaphone was still shouting. 


	10. Purity over rot

Leon woke up without really waking up. It'd happened before. Coming out of a blackout was different from waking up because he could be in mid action, sometimes, and his awareness would just rocket back.   
  
He'd been saying something shortly before his Xanax autopilot had been taken off. There was spit on his lips. His heart was pounding. God knew what the fuck he'd been saying.   
  
The room was sterile. Big white tiles made up the walls, floor, and a ceiling that was only interrupted by florescent lighting. There was a table, the chair Leon was fastened to, and another chair.   
  
Krauser, he was crumpled in the corner of the room, handcuffed to a steel beam running along the length of the wall.   
  
The wall opposite of Krauser had a huge mirror affixed to it. Or, what appeared to be a mirror. It was actually one way glass. They were being monitored. Leon counted one, no, two cameras mounted on the ceiling. The black bulbs over them prevented him from being able to tell where they faced.   
  
Krauser was staring ahead. He looked pale. His eyes were glossed over. Possibly drugged? Blood was drying on his shirt. Had they tended at all to the wound Leon had given him? And more importantly, who was they?   
  
The atmosphere was starkly reminiscent of Umbrella, down to the one way glass and the mirrors. Not that it meant anything. Leon swallowed thickly. There wouldn't be talking anyone out of anything.   
  
What the fuck had he been saying?   
  
"Krauser." No response. Krauser didn't even look at him.   
  
"Krauser," Leon repeated, with a little more oomph.   
  
Krauser looked over blearily, his breath somewhere between a wheeze and a sigh.   
  
"Do you know what I was saying? What's happened?"   
  
Krauser looked at him for a long time, those light blue eyes settling on his face, and it took everything in Leon not to squirm under the other man's stare. A stare, that, despite everything, could cut glass if it wanted to.   
  
"Don't remember, Leon?" His response almost came out in a drawl.   
  
"What'd they give you, Krauser?"   
  
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Leon realized that Krauser had been operating under a fake name the entire time. And that he'd blown it. Maybe he'd blown it before hand, but now, he definitely had.   
  
"Fuck off, pretty boy." There was a finality to Krauser's voice that almost hurt. Leon struggled against the zip ties around his ankles, fastening him to the chair, and around his wrists. No avail. Fucking zip ties.   
  
"Listen, if you know something that can help-"   
  
"What makes you think you're in shape to fucking help anyone, let alone me?" Krauser sat up, his back against the wall. Where the handcuff met the wrist, there was a slice of raw flesh. Why did Krauser get handcuffs while he got zipties?   
  
Leon pushed the thought out of his mind.   
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was time for a fucking intervention. Please, do me a favor and call A&E, _Max_."   
  
"Your sarcasm isn't gonna do shit. Can it, asshole, I'm trying to think."   
  
Krauser went right back to staring off into space.   
  
The zipties dug into his skin as he pushed against them, and finally, he'd tipped the chair up on the two front legs, and it looked like the ties might break at any moment. Leon gave one more push.   
  
The chair fell over. Leon rested his head against the floor. This was fucked.   
  
  
  
Leon had got some pretty good digs in. Impressive ones, considering their situation. Not that it mattered, the guy was obviously out of his gord at this point. Jack had put together that much, at least.   
  
The handcuff was digging into his skin, and trails of blood had run and dried on his arm. The stab wound, their captors must have tended to it in the helicopter. It was hastily dressed. No one had come into the room since they'd been deposited. Jack counted not two, but three cameras, the third mounted in the red EXIT sign above the door. The one way glass revealed only a crisp reflection of the room.   
  
Jack closed his eyes. He could only wait.   
  
Wallowing in regret wouldn't do very much at this point. Still. In their short time traveling together, he'd noticed several... unsavory things about Leon. There were the night sweats, the screaming in his sleep, the near constant stream of Xanax that he was pumping into his body, sure. All of those things could be explained away, justified, one way or another.   
  
The thing that truly bothered him, the thing that kept him on his toes and made the hair on the back of his neck rise, was this ugly sort of deflective dishonestly Leon seemed to have. Perhaps dishonesty wasn't the right word.   
  
It was a complicated web of half truths. He'd picked up on the fact that really, Leon hadn't been working for the military in any real way for a while. How long, Jack wasn't sure. He'd been living out of the Volkswagon long before Jack had been in the picture, that much was true.   
  
And now, in light of their capture, there was something... fucked about the Aphelion thing. Fucked in the way like Leon was batshit insane, or close to it.   
  
And if Leon was batshit insane, what did that make Jack?   
  
The door opened and he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at the figures by the door. There was a man in a labcoat, with a clipboard, accompanied by a man in riot gear with a sub-automatic machine-gun. Interesting choice. There were no logos anywhere on their person. Between the lack of logos and the sub-automatic, maybe they weren't looking at the actual United States military, or whatever was left of it. Or maybe, the US military had decayed to that point. But wait, no, that guy Barry, he'd been surprised by their lack of uniform.   
  
Jack's brows furrowed in thought.   
  
"Mr. Krauser." The man in the labcoat turned toward him, and picked up a page on his clipboard to glance at another one before letting it back down. "If you make trouble, we will chemically restrain you." Neither the labcoat nor the gun was looking at Leon. The gun crossed the   
  
room from the doorway and unlocked his handcuff.   
  
Jack rolled his shoulder and stood. Between sitting down for so long and having his arm strung up awkwardly and the metal digging into his wrist, he was filled with relief.   
  
"I'll come quietly." He put his arms up, palm facing the labcoat. Where the hell did his jacket go?   
  
"Good." The guard jabbed the sub into the small of his back and Jack started walking, following the man with the clipboard. The corridor was long. On either side, windows.   
  
In the first room to his left, two men were scraping something hard and red off a table, with what looked like a paint scraper. Both were wearing hazmat suits. In the corner of the room, some splatters of red. Jack swallowed. Blood didn't dry that thick.   
  
The next room he looked into had six or seven monkeys hooked up to IVs in several places. Pale orange liquid drained into them from bags. The monkeys dozed.   
  
He could hear the screaming from the room ahead as soon as he'd gotten into the hallway. As they approached, there was the mechanical screech of a drill. More screaming, wordless and hoarse. Like whatever was going on had been for a while. Jack looked down at the floor, and his feet.   
  
Finally they got to the door at the end of the hall.   
  
Another interrogation room.   
  
"Sit down." This was from the one with the clipboard.   
  
Jack obeyed, easing into the metal chair by the table.   
  
More than anything, his body hurt. Sleeping on the passenger seat of the Passat, the knife fight, everything. He rubbed his eyes.   
  
"Do you know who we are?"   
  
Jack kept his gaze fixed on the tabletop. His spit felt like sludge in his mouth.   
  
"Got an idea." He wasn't in any position to play hardball. Still, he wouldn't take a guess and be wrong. That would put all of his cards on the table, make him look weak. No. Vagueness was his best bet.   
  
The heat in the interrogation room was cranked, he noticed. The man with the submachine gun had removed his bulletproof SWAT vest and his helmet. Jack's armpits were growing moist.   
  
"We assumed. Hadn't you and Mr. Kennedy considered that while you were looking into us, we were looking right back?" The labcoat's tone was so self satisfied that Jack couldn't help but sneering, if only for a moment.   
  
"Think I could get some water? I'm parched." The wound on his wrist had opened up again. The blood was soaking into his fatigues. The blood taste in his mouth, it had never quite went away. The cracked tooth (teeth?) had been throbbing since he'd regained consciousness.  
  
"I think you'll wait, Mr. Krauser." The labcoat paused. "Or, is that not the name you're using these days?"   
  
Jack narrowed his eyes. The implication that Jack Krauser wasn't his given name either wasn't lost on him. These guys, they were smart.   
  
"Really, Aphelion doesn't have any use for you. We got what we needed before you woke up." The labcoat gestured to his abbreviated arm. "The plaga was what we were after, and incidentally, what we were paying you for. We only revived you from stasis for... sentimental reasons."   
  
Sentimental reasons? Jack bared his teeth, still keeping his stare fixed on the table.   
  
"And it seems you've let Mr. Kennedy get you all riled up, is that right?"   
  
It was true in more ways than one. The labcoat sat on the table.   
  
"Well, we all make mistakes. This... this can be rectified, in the eyes of the management. Your bringing a former government operative to our doorstep was not appreciated, Jack, you must understand."   
  
"Rectified?" Jack looked up and met eyes with the labcoat for the first time.   
  
"Yes, rectified. Not only your standing in the eyes of Aphelion, but your arm. Your name."   
  
Jack's heat skipped a beat. This was too good to be true.   
  
"Of course you'd have to consent to the trials of the many things we're developing here. That's what we're doing, you know. Umbrella, they missed the boat. They had the burden of having to hide from the UN. We don't. Aphelion is a private military as well as a pharmaceutical company. We're making money on two fronts. Our competitors have a similar business model, yet..."   
  
The labcoat laughed, and it was a sickening, wet noise, not unlike the breathing of the thing in the warehouse.   
  
"Yet we have sensibilities, and connections, that put us at the forefront. I think you're presence can attest to that, Mr. Krauser."   
  
Jack grunted in response.   
  
"You saying you want me to work for you?"   
  
"What I'm saying is that we're going to test our performance enhancing chemicals on you, then send you on RECON missions."   
  
Sweat was covering Jack's brow. All the thirsty swallowing he was doing had caused blood to seep out of the cracks in his molars. The nerves there were on fire. The guard had stripped to his shirtsleeves, and was fanning himself, one hand on the sub-automatic.   
  
This was a chance for him to return to the only thing that had ever mattered to him, really. He'd get fixed up and shipped out. He'd be part of something again. Someone would tell him what to do and he'd carry out any task with gusto, because anything, even this, was better than rotting in front of the television screen.   
  
In some ways, Leon had been right. He'd talked about redemption and making something of themselves, and here Jack was. He'd just been wrong about that including himself.   
  
He wanted to ask what would happen to Leon, but the question caught in his throat. No. If it looked like he had some kind of tie to Leon it could... jeopardize his standing. He had to think about himself now. What good had Leon done him? What good was Leon doing himself?   
  
Even if they hadn't gotten caught, the guy was bound to take too much Xanax and drive off a cliff or something.   
  
Whatever Aphelion did, it'd be an easier way out.   
  
Jack thought of the room with the screeching drill.   
  
"Yeah. Yeah, let's do it."   
  
The labcoat clapped his hands together.   
  
"Wonderful. Follow me right this way, Mr. Krauser."   
  
He stood.   
  
"I need water," Jack reminded the labcoat.   
  
  



End file.
